Xangô POV: Day 69

Current Wealth: 25 gold 24 silver 14 copper

I’d walked into bigger buildings than Elswick’s Main Hall, much bigger. Any given skyscraper, for one, had it beat in sheer volume by more than just a few times. My father’s house- or the main one, rather- would’ve been a runner up for sheer width, and not too far behind in height and depth. Really, it wasn’t that special by earth standards.

By Redacle standards, though, it was a giant. And so help me, I actually felt some whisper of the primitive awe that might have struck the world’s locals upon seeing it. I must’ve been acclimating to the general, lower state of things here, which was a scary thought in and of itself.

Within the building, I was walked through long hallways packed full of obnoxious decorations. Suits of armour on display, big heavy swords and shields mounted on walls, stuffed animals…A stuffed troll. It all demonstrated an excess of wealth that I might’ve expected from the ruling body of an entire city.

And it irritated me, too. Those suits of plate armour could’ve kept fighting men alive, just as ours had kept Solitaire alive when that orc took a swing for his head. The money gone into stuffing and hanging those animals might’ve bought medicine, or food. Any of the things we’d spent so long doing without. It seemed my flirtation with poverty had changed the sight of wealth, maybe forever. I wasn’t entirely sure how I felt about that.

It was a bunch of servants who led me through all the pomp and privilege, and not one of them actually spoke to me as we marched deeper into the building. All looked slightly nervous, though I wasn’t arrogant enough to assume it was on my behalf. Probably they just had mean bosses, you learned to recognise that sort of thing through the state of a person’s subordinates. Actually the way people’s workers acted could tell you all sorts. I noted no lack of “refinement” in these ones, backs all straight, body language all prim and carefully trimmed away into an almost mechanical finish.

So the city’s councilmen, one or more of them at least, had a thing for propriety and formality. That was useful to know ahead of time. I didn’t have the chance to figure out much more, though, because we were soon at our destination.

In my head, I’d been marching towards some big chamber full of imperious glares from wizened old politicians. Instead I found myself dumped into a warm office, fire burning hot beneath a mantlepiece on one side, and papers stacked high along a ridiculously sized desk on the other. My host was seated behind that guest, and he, at the very least, did meet my expectations in being an elderly man. Spectacled, face lined, eyes hawkish. Other than that, though, I found the affair far more like being taken to some C.E.O’s presence than a nobleman from any fantasy novel, my own included.

“Belahont.” The man said, without looking up at me. “Xangô Belahont, correct?”

He mispronounced my name, vocalising the vowels in accordance with British phonetics. Which told me that he’d probably seen it written without hearing it spoken. That was interesting in and of itself, in a world as illiterate as this one it was no small thing to have people write about you without even hearing your name aloud.

I tucked the information away for later, and nodded.

“That’s right, my Lord.” I replied, keeping my tone respectful and voice formally still and cold. He paused, glancing up at me, thoughtful.

“I’d heard you were a foreigner.” He noted. “You certainly sound like one, but…Not off-continent?”

Solitaire often said my accent sounded a bit American, Beam often said it sounded a bit English. It seemed Westerners heard it as whatever Western countries they were most familiar with save their own.

“I’ve moved around a lot.” I deflected. “I’m afraid my accent is probably quite strange to your ears, my Lord.”

The man grunted, peering at a sheet of paper. I habitually glanced at it, trying to glean whatever info I could, before remembering that I was, in fact, illiterate. That would be a side objective once I got back- learning to read this world’s language. And perhaps discovering why only spoken words were apparently translated for me.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“What you did at the fort, whatever it was called, has made the routes around town. Five soldiers against four times as many isn’t unheard of, but still…It’s impressive enough that it doesn’t happen so often. Particularly with a chieftain among the orcs.”

Chieftain? Right, that was the “rank” name for the bigger, better-armoured ones.

“I thank you, my Lord.” I replied, bowing respectfully. I’d learned plenty about scraping around arrogant old men, fortunately, and this one seemed no harder to please than most I’d met. He eyed me.

“You’re here for the reward, I take it?”

“That’s right my Lord.”

He sighed, then gestured to a servant just beyond my field of view, who quickly stepped into it with a fairly heavy bag in one hand. It jingled encouragingly as they handed it over, and I resisted the urge to count the coins. It’d probably just end up offending the noble, or, at worst, I’d actually have been short-changed and forced to choose between accepting that and confronting him about it. No way of knowing if he was the sort to take things like that as a blow to his ego, so I just tucked the money away.

“Thank you my Lord.”

He grunted again.

“Not much for conversation, you commoners, are you? Very well then, that was all, be off with you.”

I hesitated, and finally risked speaking again.

“Forgive me my Lord, but I had assumed there would be…Perhaps, more work, that you could use-”

The man cut me off, sneering.

“Use someone of your group’s resources? Please, we have more blade-wielding idiots than we know what to do with. Don’t tell me you thought killing a few orcs had earned you some kind of esteem.”

It fucking had, and he knew it, he was just being a dick. But when someone in his position decided to be a dick to someone in mine, there wasn’t a lot that could be done to prevent it. I nodded, apologetically, and bid my leave before heading out through the door.

Right outside, in the hall, I ran into a new face. A woman this time, with hair coloured a lighter blonde than I’d even known hair came in, and eyes of emerald green. She was pale, with blemishless skin and full cheeks that told me she’d grown up enjoying quite a lot more food and healthcare than was normal in Redacle. When she spoke, her voice sounded like something straight out of Buckingham Palace.

“You’re Belahont, the mercenary, yes?”

Instinctually, I re-adopted the same deferent politeness I’d warn when speaking with the nobleman, nodding respectfully.

“Yes, my Lady, how may I-”

“Tell me, when did you start learning magic?”

I paused, thought, weighed things. If she knew already then denying it might draw her ire, and I’d not done anything public to demonstrate that I’d made any sort of progress to mark myself as worth noting. That was important.

Some magi didn’t like being supplanted by those younger than them, and they had a tendency to take matters into their own hands when it came to ensuring that didn’t happen.

“A few weeks, my Lady.” I replied. It wasn’t that many, really, but it had been long enough that rounding up a bit wasn’t such a stretch. She weighed me.

“And you were able to afford these lessons almost as soon as you came to Elswick, how exactly? From my understanding, your family was haggling over a few silvers.”

Fuck, shit, shitty fuck and fucky shit. She’d done her research. That was bad, very bad. I couldn’t know what she knew- couldn’t hold probably informational paths in my head and follow them all to guess what everybody was learning the way Solitaire might. Which meant that I couldn’t be sure whether she’d know any given lie was a lie or not simply by being familiar with the events.

“My brother made the arrangements.” I replied. “He’s very persuasive.”

“Ah, yes, another new student of magic. It’s quite rare to find two in one family, you know.” She noted. “Do you want to hear what I think, Belahont?”

I nodded, because of course I did. She continued.

“I think your family has a knack for magic, and the intelligence to know better than flaunting it until you’re better established. Am I wrong?”

Several thoughts occurred to me, all leading to the inevitable conclusion of just nodding. There was no getting my way around this. The woman hummed, thoughtfully.

“Interesting. You may go now, good day.” She turned, taking her leave without another word, and I watched her go. Memorising her face and appearance.

We’d been operating, so far, on the assumption that Redaclans would continue being their idiotic selves. That had been a mistake. Every generation had its geniuses, and that was true of Redacle’s people as well. It looked like I’d just run into one. Either that, or she had a very, very good advisor.

In either scenario, she was a threat.